Staffordshire councillor highlights communication concerns
Community leaders are acting as “goalkeepers” when residents with complaints can’t get through to Staffordshire County Council, a Stafford representative has said.
Councillor John Francis highlighted communication as an issue for the authority as a committee considered an annual corporate services complaints report.
Kate Bullivant, the council’s customer feedback and complaints manager, told Tuesday’s meeting that the number of “stage one” complaints had reduced from 87 in 2020/21 to 49 in 2021/21. She added: “There are lots of lessons learned that show we take complaints seriously.”
The number of “stage two” complaints increased from 20 in 2020/21 to 26 the following year. And the number of contacts with the council from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman also rose, from 20 in 2020/21 to 24 in 2021/22.
Councillor Francis said: “A few years ago we highlighted communication as a major problem and I don’t think it’s got any better. I get complaints all the time that people can’t get hold of the council, it’s no good ringing in, the number doesn’t work, elderly people say ‘I can’t go on a website, I can’t use it’ – the list goes on and on.
“How the hell are we going to improve that if we’re in such a mess, trying to get communication into the building without explaining what’s going on? Digital this and digital that is fantastic when it works, but when you have a serious issue – particularly a vulnerable adult who needs to get to the council to get some help – they come to me and complain they can’t get help or get through, or they haven’t got the right person or they’ve been fobbed off.
“We as local members are doing the goalkeeping here. It’s us who have to put up with the complaints and we go and sort it on their behalf.”
Ms Bullivant responded: “Communication throughout the council is highlighted at every point throughout the complaints procedure. We’re a digital council and therefore a lot of our processes are digital.
“The complaints phones are always open, we do take calls. In respect of adult social care, Jo Cowcher (assistant director of adult social care and safeguarding) ensures that we find different ways for our elderly people to contact us.
“I know there is work ongoing in respect of ensuring there is someone at the end of the phone via transformation in a number of areas at the moment. So whilst I appreciate you don’t think it is being taken on board, it is being taken on board and we do try to move forward with that.”
John Tradewell, the council’s director of corporate services, said: “There is no doubt we have to be able to interact properly with our residents. It’s inevitable that on occasion that is going to break down and it’s great we’re picking those up through the complaints process and learning from those.
“In terms of the massive interaction we have as an organisation, eight complaints in a year around communication is fairly small in the grand context. Every one of our officers has an email facility and are getting hundreds of emails every week and dealing with those.
“We do always have the contact centre for people to ring if they do need to speak to someone. We’ve never adopted that ‘digital-only’ approach; yes we like to encourage people to digital if they can because that ultimately is the most efficient way of dealing with their issues but there is always that ability to speak to a person if they really need to.
“We’ve always been committed to keeping those lines open. We have a significant team that handles those calls and they’re very good at getting those calls through to the right people.”
Council leader Alan White said: “Frontline councillors are the ones who are dealing with a lot of this stuff. But if you go to Google and type ‘contact Staffordshire County Council’ the search engine is optimised so the first thing that comes up is the telephone number of the council.
“We do continue to make it easy for people to get in touch with us if they want. We’ve continued to fund the contact centre because we know some people like to get in touch by phone.
“Eight complaints isn’t really a huge amount in the grand scheme of things. We’d like it to be lower, but in a county of 880,000 people eight complaints is not a whole hill of beans.”
